The present invention relates to a method and system for real-time access of data and in particular to real-time access of financial data from disparate data sources.
Real-time access to information is a primary focus of technological development in commercial activity today. A wide range of different data storage formatting environments are available to store information. With the abundant amount of information available, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to bridge these diverse environments and integrate data from disparate data sources, regardless of data type.
Database software technology is currently being developed to enable common data access from diverse formatted data sources, irrespective of data type. Universal Data Access (UDA) is a software technology developed by Microsoft for accessing data. An Object Linking and Embedding database (OLE DB) specification is the underlying programming model for accessing multi-dimensional data through a Component Object Model (COM). Specifically, the OLE DB defines a set of COM interfaces that permit uniform access to data stored in diverse sources, regardless of location or type. Thus, the OLE DB application program interface (API) is a flexible and efficient means for achieving universal data integration and accessability.
The basic concept of the OLE DB specification is to arrange data in a standard, tabular form comprising rows and columns. The OLE DB specification is described in Microsoft OLE DB 2.0 Programmer""s Reference and Data Access SDK, Microsoft Press, (1999), and is hereby incorporated by reference.
It is therefore desirable to implement the OLE DB technology for real-time accessing of financial data from disparate data sources.
An object of the present invention is develop a method and system for accessing financial data that is suitable for data of different formats from disparate sources.
In accordance with the present invention, real-time financial information or data is stored and arranged in a data model with table and column schema in a standard suitable for use with an OLE DB provider programmed to access financial information. Accordingly, different types of financial information from disparate sources may be integrated and readily accessed. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a real-time OLE DB provider data model that is divided into different tables categorized into records, pages, time series and context information.
One aspect of the present is directed to a data model for providing real-time access to financial information using an Object Linking and Embedding database provider, wherein the data model includes a real-time record table, a time series table, a page table, and/or a context table.